EERIE

01.02.11

Arkansas Bird Deaths Mysteries

Stephen B. Thornton

What’s going on in Arkansas? Late in the evening on December 31, thousands of black birds over the small town of Beebe started mysteriously
falling out of the sky. "It was horrible; you could not even get down the road without running over hundreds. It was that bad,” said one local woman. Air toxicity tests came back clean, but 65 bird carcasses have been sent for further testing. Officials have put forward an array of theories for cause of death, including lightning, high altitude hail, and fireworks. Meanwhile in Ozark, 125 miles west, 100,000 dead fish have turned up; officials expect disease, but the amount is staggering and rare, they say.